November 16

Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with Him. — ExOD. xxxiv. 29.

IV iR The experience of Moses teaches us that the loftiest beauty November. character comes from communion with God. That is the use that the Apostle makes of this remarkable incident in 2 Corinthians iii., where he takes the light that shone from Moses’ face as being the symbol of the better lustre that gleaiTis from all those who behold (or reflect) the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, and, by beholding, are changed into the likeness of that on which they gaze with adoration and longing. The great law to which, almost exclusively, Christianity commits the perfecting of individual character is this: Look at Ilim till you are like Him, and, in beholding, be changed. There have been in the past, and there are to-day, thousands of simple souls shut out by lowHness of position and other circumstances from all the refining and ennobling influences of which the world makes so much, who yet in character and bearing, aye, and sometimes in the very look of their meek faces, are living witnesses how true and mighty to transform a nature is the power of loving gaze upon Jesus Christ. There is no influence to refine and beautify men like that of living near Jesus Christ, and walking in the light of that beauty which is the effulgence of the Divine glory and the express image of His Person.

But, then, the bearer of the radiance is unconscious of it. In all regions of life the consummate apex and crowning charm of excellence is unconsciousness of excellence. Whenever a man begins to suspect that he is good he begins to be bad; and you rob every virtue and beauty of character of some portion of its attractive fairness when the man who bears it knows, or fancies that he knows, it. The more a man is like Christ, the less he knows it; and the better he is the less he suspects it. Let us try to lose ourselves in Jesus Christ. It is safe for us to leave all thoughts of our miserable selves behind us, if instead of them we have the thought of that great, sweet, dear Lord filling mind and heart.

Think constantly and longingly of the unattained. “Brethren, I count net myself to have apprehended.” Endless aspiration and a stinging consciousness of present imperfection are the loftiest states of man here below. The people down in the valley, when they look up, may see our figures against the sky-line, and fancy us at the summit; but our loftier elevation reveals untrodden heights beyond, and we have only risen so high in order to discern more clearly how much higher we have to rise. The best way to keep unconscious of present attainments is to set our faces forward, and to make “all experience” as “an arch where through gleams that untravelled world to which we move.” Let us cultivate a clear sense of our own imperfections. We do not need to try to learn our goodness that will suggest itself to us only too clearly; but what we do need is to have a very clear sense of our shortcomings and failures, our faults of temper, our faults of desire, our faults in our relations to our fellows. A true man will never be so much ashamed of himself as when he is praised, for it will always send him to look into the deep places of his heart, and there will be plenty of ugly creeping things under the stones there if he will only turn them up and look beneath.